New Zealand Photography eBook Coming Soon

Within the next few days we will be launching New Zealand Tip-to-Tip, our newest photography eBook. We thought that readers may enjoy seeing a preview of our New Zealand photography eBook. What follows are a number of jpegs made from various pages in the eBook.

NOTE: Click on images to enlarge.

New Zealand Tip-to-Tip has been under development for quite some time, and has been a ‘labour of love’ for a number of years. This 250 page eBook features 89 locations in New Zealand and incorporates over 400 original images. The field work for this eBook involved three trips to New Zealand between 2013 and 2018, and us spending a total of about 3 months on the ground, driving throughout the country and photographing various locations.

Thirty-three North Island locations are included in New Zealand Tip-to-Tip and are detailed in the North Island index.

Additionally, fifty-six locations on the South Island are covered and shown in the South Island index.

A 4-page introduction gives readers an overview of the purpose of New Zealand Tip-to-Tip. It also provides some background information on the eBook project, including our methodology in capturing images during our trips to this magnificent country.

We’ve also included 7 pages dedicated to some travel tips that are useful when visiting New Zealand.

The North Island and South Island each have multiple page summary sections that provide readers with brief overviews of each island.

The various featured locations all have dedicated, lead-in information pages that follow a common format. Each location introduction page provides readers with an inset location map, a feature image captured at that location, and some additional details. As you can see from the indexes, many locations have multiple page sections. Let’s have a look at a couple of pages from the Wai-O-Tapu location.

In most cases the multiple page locations incorporate the approach used for Wai-O-Tapu, i.e. some additional wording on the subsequent pages.

Some of the locations in our New Zealand photography eBook have additional pages that feature more photographs without any wording. McLean Falls is a good example.

To give readers a good overview of the contents in our New Zealand photography eBook, let’s have a look at five of the thirty-three North Island locations featured in New Zealand Tip-to-Tip. These include the Blue Spring – Te Waihou Walkway, Hamilton Gardens, the Hobbiton Movie Set Tour, the Onearo Beach area, and the Whangaehu Valley Road & Field Track.

To give the South Island equal exposure in this preview article, let’s have a look at five of the fifty-six locations on the South Island that are featured in New Zealand Tip-to-Tip. These include KaKa Point, Aoraki Mount Cook National Park, Nelson – Tahunanui Beach, Pelorus Mail Boat – Havelock, and Te Anua Lakefront.

Some readers may be wondering why we chose the name “New Zealand Tip-to-Tip” for our New Zealand photography eBook.

The goal that my wife and I set for ourselves was to travel from the most northern tip of the North Island that a typical tourist is allowed to visit, all the way down to the most southern point on the South Island. Our journeys took us from Cape Reinga at the tip of the North Island, all the way down to Slope Point at the tip of the South Island. Thus the eBook title, New Zealand Tip-to-Tip.

Here’s a look at the lead-in page for the Cape Reinga section…

And, here’s a look at Slope Point at the other end of New Zealand…

It was an interesting personal journey for my wife and I to work together on a massive eBook project like New Zealand Tip-to-Tip.

We’re hopeful that New Zealand Tip-to-Tip will appeal to a wide range of readers… folks who love travel photography and landscape photography in general… people who want to learn more about New Zealand… and perhaps some readers who want to travel to New Zealand.

At this point we are doing our final editing checks and testing website downloads. As mentioned at the start of this article, New Zealand Tip-to-Tip will be launched later this week.

Update for Readers: Purchasing Link

If you would like to purchase a copy of New Zealand Tip-to-Tip you can use the Buy button below. The cost for the eBook is $12.99 Canadian.

We thank all of you for your support over the past number of years !

New Zealand Tip-to-Tip is Copyright 2018 Thomas Stirr and Rosemary Stirr. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, duplicated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, printing, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written consent of Thomas Stirr or Rosemary Stirr. Purchasers of this eBook are granted the permission to read the book and view the images contained therein for their sole use only. Published by Thomas-Ritt Associates Limited.

Hi Thomas, this looks fantastic, great job. I’m glad you enjoyed the Blue Spring walk. In the late 1980’s I was working for the Matamata County Council and one of our jobs was to establish a water supply for the nearby town of Putaruru. After some unsuccessful drilling we were told of a spring in the river and duly explored the local farm until we found it. From there we sent divers into the blue spring, took water samples, negotiated with the local land owners, replaced an old bridge and built the road which you would have walked along. The water does not need any treatment. The Council was disbanded at the end of the 1980’s and the 2 or 3 of us involved spread far and wide so our story is all but lost. Its great to see the walkway in place now and have walked it a couple of times.
One small thing in your Mt.Cook section is that the Hooker Valley track is a lot longer than you note. I suspect the lengths and times you give are to the memorial/lookout as the full track is 10km return and rated at about 3 hours. By the way I have done it a number of times and rate it as the best half day walk in New Zealand.
Good luck with the ebook and having been to most of the places you list I’m looking forward to seeing the finished product.

Thank you very much for adding your personal experiences in your comment. I had another look at the ‘Hooker track’ information and we made an error in our notes. I have corrected that page – thanks again for bringing your local knowledge to bear!

Hi Thomas
I am in Auckland but my wife and I travel a lot around NZ. 8 times to Mt Cook so far! We usually pick spots and go and stay for a week. This Christmas its Golden Bay at the top of the South Island. I double checked too and note that DOC list the first 900m as the Hooker Valley walk on one page and list the Hooker Valley Track at 10km on another. So I think what you have shown is correct, it is DOC that have confused things by calling the first part of the track a walk. To add to the confusion the government announced that a number of walks will be classified as Great Short Walks including the Hooker Valley Track. I would think that if you want to be safe you could leave your note as it is and just add that the walk is part of the longer Hooker Valley Track. I must say that I am very impressed with what you have done, it must be a labour of love. Cheers Russell

To avoid the confusion I have changed the Hooker Valley portion to read as a ‘track’ and changed the distance to 10 km with a total return time of 3 hours. I think trying to explain the ‘track vs walk’ difference would be difficult given the space limitations with which we are dealing. Good to know that our notes were actually correct… just confusing!

Yes… it has been a labour of love for sure! My wife and I absolutely love New Zealand and have visited four times thus far.

During our last visit to New Zealand in March 2018 we planned to stay for a couple of nights in Collingwood so we could explore the Golden Bay area in more detail. Unfortunately after Cyclone Gita hit the South Island, parts of the Takaka Hill Road was closed due to a number of slips. The road was opened for a couple of hours per day while we were on the ground in New Zealand, but on the morning we were going to go to Collingwood as part of one of the caravans, more slips occurred which delayed things for a number of hours. We ended up changing our plans and stayed a couple of extra nights in Nelson. Whether we can actually get back to the Golden Bay area at some point in the future is unknown at this time.